Also this issue: The Big Con Why Philadelphia bands play the CMJ festival. -Patrick Rapa Tropical Impressions Caetono Veloso tells the truth. -A.D. Amorosi suitespot -Peter Burwasser on Classical Back to Basics Which in The Divine Comedy's case means less rock, more baroque. -Sam Adams Flute Awakening -Peter Burwasser Catherine Irwin -Sam Adams Kim Richey -Sam Adams Jack Johnson -Chris Parker

November 7-13, 2002

music

Right On Time

by Sam Adams

Linda Thompson took the Keswick’s stage at precisely 8:30, a timely appearance for a woman whose long absence from performing is winked at in the title of Fashionably Late, her first album in 17 years. In fact, the reason for Thompson’s sabbatical was anything but a joke; after years recording and touring with her ex-husband Richard -- who, as luck would have it, was performing in Princeton the same night -- Thompson was struck with dysphonia, a medical condition that rendered her physically incapable of singing. (There’s some doubt as to whether its causes are psychological or physiological.)

Especially in a live setting, it's clear that Thompson's voice isn't what it was; the loss is felt in volume -- not loudness, but physical presence. But the slight rasp in Thompson's voice lent poignancy to such melancholic tunes as "Weary Life" and "The Banks of the Clyde," while daughter Kammie and son Teddy backed her up with vocals of stunning purity. In fact, Thompson's children, who made up half of her four-person backing band, have such clear, melodious voices that they verge on blandness, which also afflicted Teddy's opening set. (He's toured as a solo artist, and as a backing musician with his father and Rufus Wainwright.)

Where Linda once put the sugar in the sweet and sour harmonies that characterize her albums with her ex-husband, she's almost taken on his role now, confirmed by exuberant versions of such old favorites as "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight," the unreleased "Two Lonely Hearts" and "Dimming of the Day," which closed the show on an elegiac note. On a rainy Tuesday night, Thompson was greeted by a two-thirds empty auditorium, but it didn't dampen her spirits. She called the crowd "small but selective" and even worked a playful barb at her ex into the intro to "Dear Old Man of Mine": "This song is about... well, a fellow who's playing in Princeton tonight, actually. I'm going to pretend he's stolen all my audience."